IRC on an HDTV
Above: typical chat on IRC in the 80s and 90s

Dear readers and customers,

we all have our roots and as such, of course there was a time before algorithms, a time of a highly personalised 90s web, which we know very well too.

So for today we’d like to share a nice piece of nostalgia with you from a time when the web was not even half as polished and more personalised compared to what it is today:

A Time Before Algorithms Took Over the 90’s Web.

Some gems from the text:

  1. View Source to Learn HTML
    One of the most common “hacks” was simply right-clicking on a webpage and hitting “View Source.” This allowed you to peek at the HTML behind any website, copy it, and modify it to create your own site. Many amateurs like me learned coding by reverse-engineering other pages.
  2. Hiding Easter Eggs:
    Websites were full of hidden Easter eggs, from secret links buried in seemingly random places to invisible text only visible by highlighting.
  3. Customizing Mouse Cursors
    Changed the mouse cursor to something ridiculous like a sparkly wand or a rotating icon.
  4. Unwanted Music
    Many websites would automatically play music (MIDI files were popular), usually without warning or a way to stop it. I did that too. Nobody complained back then!
  5. Pop-Up Madness
    I quickly learned to use JavaScript to create endless pop-up windows as a prank. Some mischievous sites would trap visitors in a loop of windows, forcing them to either close them all manually or restart their browser or computer – one of the early forms of trolling!
  6. HTML Marquee and Blink Tags
    For extra flair, many websites used the <marquee> tag to make text scroll across the screen, or the <blink> tag to make text flash. These tricks were respected and seen as a sign of creativity.
  7. Under Construction Forever
    People loved to plaster their websites with flashing “Under Construction” GIFs, even if the site wasn’t actually being updated. This was a playful way to signal that you were working on something new, though often nothing ever changed! I did that too. The mystery was part of the charm.
  8. ICQ “Spamming” and Custom Away Messages
    ICQ, one of the earliest instant messaging apps, allowed users to customize away messages with all sorts of weird ASCII art or status updates. And later yahoo messenger took it to the next level with custom sounds and notifications.
  9. Free Internet with Trial Discs
    We used to have disks that offered free trials of internet service providers. I remember collecting them and using them to get online without paying for a subscription. I figured out that if you signed up using different email addresses or tweaked the trial periods, you could string together months of free internet access.
  10. Hotlinking Bandwidth Theft
    Hotlinking was a common hack where people would steal images or media from another site by directly linking to them. This would use up the original site’s bandwidth, and some webmasters would combat it by replacing hotlinked images with something embarrassing for the thief.
  11. Prank 404 Pages
    Many early websites featured custom 404 error pages that were often filled with jokes, riddles, or even taunts. These made the 90s web a bit more entertaining than just seeing a Page Not Found message. I remember talking to my friends about –

    Friend – What content should I add in my 404 page? It feels empty.

    Me – 404 is the real homepage. Add everything you have got.

    Its sily when I think about it. But owning a website was a badge of honor.

We hope you enjoy reading here as much as we did. We know exactly what’s going on here but for many readers today, this may be something completely new. Let’s try to preserve it in a way we all might have a smile for many years to come. 🙂

All the best,
the aethyx staff

Ether spenden // Donate Ether
Bitcoin-Spenden hier akzeptiert ^^

animated cheetah

Dear readers and customers,

after 14 years existence of this neat little Indie online publishing house, let us introduce you now to our official mascot: the cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus)!

We chose this animal for several reasons. Here is why:

  • it’s agile: no animal on Earth could represent this spirit more. It’s our ultimate goal in anything we do here since our inception
  • it’s a cat: everybody loves cats! So do we
  • speed: the Internet changed the way we consume, interact with and create media. You need velocity for that. Perfect for our agile approach
  • it’s majestic: the cheetah knows exactly what it does. Every movement during the hunt requires perfect coordination of the body. Oh, and if things get hectic, luckily you can catch it with your tail!
  • it’s a neat predator: as a company, you sometimes have to be able to negotiate tough. It is an advantage if you look cute here

As positive as this may all sound, to this day, the cheetah is still listed as “vulnerable” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Because of that, we support the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) since many many years with a monthly double digit Euro amount. With our help, we are a godfather for a cheetah (we are currently having our third animal already) and ensure that the animals are able to survive for many years to come in the wild.

You can do this too: as an individual through donations. As well as a company. Any help is highly appreciated not only by us (the big cheetah fans) or the CCF but by the cats themselves. Purr!

What we will do now is insert small cheetahs from time to time here on our website. If you find one, send us the address (URL) of the page where you found one to info@aethyx.eu. At the end of the year you may be one of the lucky ones to win something! It’s a surprise but we are sure you will like it. Chirp Chirp!

Stay tuned and never stop running,
the aethyx staff

Ether spenden // Donate Ether
Bitcoin-Spenden hier akzeptiert ^^

Dear readers and customers,

the last weeks was a time of celebration for Internet activists and indie publishers alike: Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks, hacker and investigative journalist, finally was freed and could leave into his home country Australia.

Today we would like to share a short video about the man who changed Internet journalism forever:

We are not affiliated with Wikileaks in any way. We are also not very deep into investigative journalism. Nevertheless, we think Julian Assange is and always was important for our Western democracy and journalism in general. Let’s hope we will never see a similar case in the future, as we can’t afford loosing our reputation regarding our freedom and the freedom we protect and are willing to even die for since the end of WWII.

We hope you enjoy the video.

Stay curious,
the aethyx staff

Ether spenden // Donate Ether
Bitcoin-Spenden hier akzeptiert ^^

Rejected!

Dear readers and customers,

bit by bit, our Android apps vanish from the official Google Play store.

It all started September 2023 when our only Android videogame, Zombie Resistor: Apocalypse, was found “not compliant with Google Play Policies” and thus removed. Google mentioned we missed a “Data safety form” – to be honest we had no f***ing clue what the problem really was here.

As our Android web browser, YAABy, was removed in March for the same reason, and Gizmeo Gadget News was forced to leave beginning of April 2024 too, we started digging. And fell into a rabbit hole we think was layed out entirely by the mega-corp Google itself.

We started a test, created an additional a “Google Play store privacy” document from scratch and updated the Gizmeo app first – and were rejected again. Furthermore, we are not allowed to use the “News” section for our app (but Gizmeo does exactly that: it’s weblog about electronic gadgets!) – a section we used since 2014(!) and never had to change. Double rejection – f*** yeah! We then contacted Google Play Store support, explained to them that this is nonsense and didn’t get a reply we could use for good (we can share the documents publicly in case some entity is interested). As our test for one app was not successful, we refused updating the other apps and currently think about releasing all of our Android apps with source codes on our GitLab.

You can vote for this action via our company LinkedIn page currently: https://linkedin.com/company/aethyx.

This is it! That’s summed up how Google Play died for us for distribution.

We had one helluva ride the last ten years. Thanks for all your support and your downloads! We hope you liked it!

Let’s see it from the bright side: the same thing must have happened to the Opera app store. In the later case, we didn’t even receive one Email, we just coincidentally some day couldn’t reach the app page anymore. Sh*t happens!

Yeah, being indie is in fact hard. For the moment, only Amazon is an app store where you can still download our Android apps if you like: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=mobile-apps&rh=p_4%3AAETHYX+MEDIAE+%28Sascha+Schroeder%29&ref=mas_dl. To this day, we don’t understand why on Amazon things work whereas with Google they don’t. We got the problem: we missed a form. But we created one, where rejected and then rejected again for another reason. This is bullshit, sorry folks.

Think twice where you release your apps,
stay positive out there,
the aethyx staff

Ether spenden // Donate Ether
Bitcoin-Spenden hier akzeptiert ^^

productivity

Dear readers and customers,

on the professional network LinkedIn there’s a recent hot topic which we would like to share here as we find this list incredibly useful.

I seems Tesla‘s CEO Elon Musk sent an email to the staff with his 6 rules for productivity. Somehow it leaked. Here they are:

1. Avoid large meetings
Large meetings waste valuable time and energy.
– They discourage debate
– People are more guarded than open
– There’s not enough time for everyone to contribute
Don’t schedule large meetings unless you’re certain they provide value to everyone.

2. Leave a meeting if you’re not contributing
If a meeting doesn’t require your:
– Input
– Value
– Decisions
Your presence is useless.
It’s not rude to leave a meeting.
But it’s rude to waste people’s time.

3. Forget the chain of command
Communicate with colleagues directly.
Not through supervisors or managers.
Fast communicators make fast decisions.
Fast decisions = competitive advantage.

4. Be clear, not clever
Avoid nonsense words and technical jargon.
It slows down communication.
Choose words that are:
– Concise
– To the point
– Easy to understand
Don’t sound smart. Be efficient.

5. Ditch frequent meetings
There’s no better way to waste everyone’s time.
Use meetings to:
– Collaborate
– Attack issues head-on
– Solve urgent problems
But once you resolve the issue, frequent meetings are no longer necessary.
You can resolve most issues without a meeting.
Instead of meetings:
– Send a text
– Send an email
– Communicate on a discord or slack channel
Don’t interrupt your team’s workflow if it’s unnecessary.

6. Use common sense
If a company rule doesn’t:
– Make sense
– Contribute to progress
– Apply to your specific situation
Avoid following the rule with your eyes closed.
Don’t follow rules. Follow principles.

We think this is applicable to any technology company in general, not electric automobile only. Tell us what you think about in the comments here!

We hope you are happily more productive now,
the aethyx staff

Ether spenden // Donate Ether
Bitcoin-Spenden hier akzeptiert ^^

 1 2 3 4 ... 31 32 33 Next »

Advertisement

AI Translator

Subscribers

  • 159

Categories

Archives